Finding Your Bliss Counseling LLC

11/28/2025

Thanksgiving can be a beautiful holiday and a brutally complicated one when you’re integrating the emotions of betrayal into your life.

11/26/2025

10/31/2025

09/09/2025

Couples therapy is this & it can be so BEAUTIFUL ❤️

08/10/2025

08/07/2025

Discover the profound insight of Dr. Gabor Maté as he unpacks the true essence of human connection in this thought-provoking excerpt from the Wholehearted Sp...

04/17/2025

If you can't afford , there are a lot of resources available & this is one of them : online courses or book clubs, from people like Julie Menanno, LMFT, using her book "Secure Love: Create a Relationship that Last a Lifetime." It is an easy to understand book.

12/03/2024

Let your partner into your inner world ❤️ be vulnerable in asking for the need. A complaint is an unmet and unexpressed need. How will you ever get the relationship you want & desire if you don’t take some risks and responsibilities?

In an intimate relationship, it’s so easy to fall into a binary, either/or mindset: either I ask for what I need (and risk being seen as demanding/needy/controlling) or I accept the status quo (and risk becoming resentful). ⁣
⁣
Asking for what you need in a relationship and honoring the relationship are not mutually exclusive. ⁣
⁣
When you ask for what you need, you can ensure that you are being relational (rather than self-serving) by adding a “because clause”:⁣
* I would like you to text me good morning because it feels so good to know you’re thinking of me when we are apart.⁣
* I would like you to plan a date for us because I feel really special when you surprise me.⁣
* I would like you to consult me before making major purchases because it helps me feel like we’re on the same team.⁣

The “because clause” gives your partner a window into your internal world - what you’re feeling, the meaning you’re making of their actions, and where your tender spots live.⁣
⁣
The “because clause” is vulnerable and therefore relational. ⁣
⁣
If you notice yourself feeling some resistance to this idea (“I shouldn’t have to explain myself”), sit with that. Play it out. What are you worried your partner might do in the face of your vulnerable share? Is this founded in experience with this partner? Past trauma? Fear?⁣
⁣
Resistance to the “because clause” may sound like this: “Ugh! It’s already so hard to ask for what I need. I just want to put it out there and be done with it. Voicing my need is already vulnerable. Enough already!”

But here’s the problem: If your ask lacks relationality and is more of a demand, then your partner’s resistance (which may be more about your approach than the ask itself) is going to be felt by you as confirmation that your needs cannot be met. A tragic self-fulfilling prophecy!

11/28/2024

🍁🦃 Happy Thanksgiving 🍽 🧡💛

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! ❤️

11/07/2024

Holding space for humanity 😔

I’m feeling heartbroken today. Here’s an offering from Rebecca Solnit that I’m holding close:

“They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.

The Wobblies used to say don’t mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don’t have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who’s upset and check your equipment for going onward.

A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones.

People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it’s sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.”

10/04/2024